What is chronic prostatitis?

Prostatitis is swelling or infection of the prostate. The prostate is a small organ that produces most of the fluid in semen. Chronic prostatitis means that your symptoms come and go over time. It's often painful.

Symptoms of chronic prostatitis are often mild and start slowly over weeks or months. They may include:

• An urge to urinate often. But you may pass only small amounts of urine.
• A burning pain when you urinate.
• Trouble starting the urine stream, urinating in waves rather than in a steady stream, having a urine flow that is weaker than normal, and dribbling after urinating.
• Waking up at night to urinate often.
• A feeling of not completely emptying your bladder.
• Pain in your lower back, in the area between the testicles and anus, in the lower belly or upper thighs, or above the pubic area. Pain may be worse during a bowel movement.
• Some pain during or after ejaculation.
• Pain in the tip of your penis.

Sometimes there are no symptoms.

Treatment for chronic prostatitis usually starts with taking an antibiotic for several weeks. If you start to feel better, you may keep taking the medicine for 2 to 3 months. If you don't get better while taking antibiotics, more tests may be done.

You may need to try more than one treatment. Other treatments include muscle relaxers and medicines that slow the growth of the prostate.

Treatment may also include self-care, such as drinking plenty of fluids and taking over-the-counter pain relievers.